Right click on the C:/ drive to bring up the following well know dialog box with General Tab selected and click Disk Cleanup button.
Disk Cleanup to analyze the selected drive and display what can be cleaned up. A progress bar is shown during this process. Wait for this to finish.
When done, Disk Cleanup shows the total amount of space that can be freed up. Then, in the 'Files to delete' section you see different types of files that can be deleted.
This will include categories such as'Downloaded Program Files', 'Recycle Bin', 'System error' files, 'Temporary files' and others. For each category of items, you see how much space they occupy at the moment.
Disk Cleanup wizard detects outdated files that can be delete, so if the category appears you can select those files to be deleted.
Recommendation: Select all categories to delete all the files, but review the categories below for further details.
Extra : Click 'Clean up system files' button (to save allot of gigs of space) - see below.
| Category | Description |
| Download Program Files | Downloaded Program Files are ActiveX controls and Java applets downloaded automatically from the Internet with you view certain pages. They are temporarily stored in the Downloaded Program Files folder on your hard disk. |
| Temporary Internet Files | The Temporary Internet Files folder contains webpages stored on your hard disk for quick viewing. Your personalized settings for webpages will be left intact. |
| Offline Webpages | Offline pages are webpages that are stored on your computer so you can view them without being connected to the Internet. If you delete these pages now, you can still view your favorites offline later by synchronizing then. Your personalized settings for webpages will be left intact. |
| Debug Dump Files | Files created by Windows. |
| Recycle Bin | The Recycle Bin contains files you have deleted from your computer. |
| Setup Log Files | Files created by Windows. |
| System Error Memory Dump Files | Remove system error memory dump files. |
| System Error Minidump Files | Remove system error minidump files. |
| Temporary Files | Programs sometimes stores temporary information in the TEMP folder. Before a program closes, it usually deleted this information. You can safely delete temporary files that have not been modified in over a week. |
| Thumbnails | Windows keeps a copy of all your picture, video, and document thumbnails so they can be displayed quickly when you open a folder. If you delete these thumbnails, they will be automatically recreated as needed. |
| User File History | Windows stores file versions temporarily on this disk before copying them to the designated File History disk. If you delete these files, you will lose some file history. |
| Per User Archived Windows Error Report | Files used for Windows Error Reporting (WER). These are logs of errors (program crashes mostly) that were reported to Microsoft by the Windows Error Reporting service. |
| Per User Queued Windows Error Report | Files used for Windows Error Reporting (WER) and solution checking. 'Queued' just means that it contains error reports that haven't been sent yet for whatever reason, and as such have been stored locally on your hard disk, waiting to be sent. |
| System Archived Windows Error Report | System Archived files used for Windows Error Reporting (WER).These are logs of errors (system crashes) that were reported to Microsoft by the Windows Error Reporting service. |
| System Queued Windows Error Report | System files used for Windows Error Reporting (WER). 'Queued' just means that it contains error reports that haven't been sent yet for whatever reason, and as such have been stored locally on your hard disk, waiting to be sent. |
'Clean up system files' button you see the following dialog box
This will include categories such as'Windows Update Cleanup', 'Windows Defender', and others.
Windows Update Cleanup only appears in the list when the Disk Cleanup wizard detects Windows updates that you don't need on your system. This category will generally save you the greatest amount of space. All of these are okay to delete, that is the purpose of this wizard.
Recommendation: Select all categories to delete all the files, but review the categories below for further details.
| Category | Description |
| Windows Update Cleanup | Windows keeps copies of all installed updates from Windows Update, even after installing newer versions of updates that are no longer needed and taking up space. (You might need to restart your computer.) |
| Device driver packages | Windows keeps copies of all previously installed device driver packages from Windows Update and other sources even after installing newer versions of drivers. This task will remove older versions of drivers that are no longer needed. The most current version of each driver package will be kept. |
| Windows Defender | Non critical files used by Windows Defender |
| Windows upgrade log files | Windows upgrade log files contain information that can help identify and troubleshoot problems that occur during Windows installation, upgrade, or servicing. Deleting these files can make it difficult to troubleshoot installation issues. |
| Service Pack Backup Files | Windows saves old versions of files that have been updated by a service pack. If you delete the files, you won't be able to uninstall the service pack later. |
When you click OK, Disk Cleanup will prompt you to confirm that you want to permanently delete the selected files.
If you have never done, you'll be surprised at the Gigs of space freed up.
Extra: You can automate Disk Cleanup to run monthly. Follow instructions here - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/schedule-disk-cleanup-to-run-regularly
No comments:
Post a Comment